Vodafone shares tumble on interims

Vodafone, the world's largest cellco, grew revenues to £9.1bn, up by nearly 20 per cent, or 1.7 per cent organic growth, in the three months ended 30 June 2008.

The company now has 269m mobile customers, an increase of 8.5m on last quarter. Data revenues grew 29.4 per cent to £664m.

But Vodafone expects revenue for the year to be towards the bottom of previous estimates of £39.8bn and £40.7bn thanks to economic weakness and worse than expected handset sales. Business in Spain was particularly hard hit by "economic and competitive effects".

The company hopes that a continued focus on cost reduction will bring in an operating profit of between £11bn and £11.5bn.

But the stock market was less impressed - Vodafone shares are down more than 11 per cent to 129.9p at the time of writing.